First baseman Chris Marrero has come on strong as of late with a home run, three RBI, and three walks over the last week. He ranks second on the Chiefs through two weeks in homers (2), RBI (9), and walks (5). After a disappointing 2012, Marrero looks back to his usual self as before last season he was good for 15+ homers and a solid average.

Pitcher of the Week

Returned from the Rockies via the Rule 5 Draft, lefty Danny Rosenbaum may just be more comfortable as a member of the Nats’ organization. He has picked up right where he left off as a Nats prospect with two strong starts for the Chiefs. Through his first two games, Rosenbaum has allowed just one earned run in 11 innings pitched. He was an excellent minor league pitcher at the Nats’ lower level teams and could some day make an impact on the major league club.

Notes

· Eury Perez was sent to the disabled list with a sprained wrist he injured diving for a pop-up on April 13

· J.C. Romero has yet to give up a run through five relief appearances. Catcher Jhonatan Solano said he is pitching very well and is a standout of the Chiefs’ staff.

· After beginning the year on a tear, Micah Owings is hitless in his last four games and has more strikeouts (7) than hits (5) in his last eight

Ghost- I missed all baseball news for the last day or so, did not know Kershaw got shelled. I thought the prevailing wisdom was that pitching is ahead of hitting in April. Lannan got shelled, too, speaking of aces, (!), but he got put on the DL.

Barry Svrluga was negative about Gio on Mr. Tony this morning. Said he concludes Gio may not be a "big game" pitcher, and cited examples of (1) postseason; (2) game vs. Atlanta last year that might have allowed them to get back in the race; and (3) game on Sunday which would have avoided the sweep. I think that's pretty harsh. I have in mind the complete game Gio pitched when the bullpen was burnt out.

Faraz Shaikh said… Question for knowledgeable folks: who has the smoothest swing in the game right now? Answer: It's Kemp for me.Ghost Of Steve M. said… Sec3, absolutely Cutter has earned it because it's tough batting .385 in High School. He's just a little older than his competition and a long shot if he makes it to AA but I never say never. Answer: Shawon Dunston over .700 his senior year in high school; I remember that when he was draft by the Cubs and looked it up in was actually .790 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawon_Dunston)

Well it's definitely not a good thing, NL. Another random observation. We scored in five innings last night. Seems like last season we would score in one , maybe two and this year we are spreading it out more over the innings. I have no idea if it means anything at all but it sure is fun to watch

I missed the back and forth about Det's pitches this morning. Did folks who took a look at PitchTrack like sites notice a breaking pitch in the mid to high 80s, which is what you'd expect from a slider, as opposed to his low 80's curveball, which doesn't have a big break like Gio's? My impression is that his repertoire is a 4 seam FB, a 2-seam FB (sometimes called his sinker) and a curveball. Everyone was agog about his pitch selection yesterday, but did any of the beat writers or other post game interviewers ask him about it?

I was just reading NatsLady's blog and she referred to Yu Darvish who I really, really, really wanted the Nats to make a run at at the time of posting. As I detailed at the time, I saw ever game of the 2009 World Baseball Classic in San Deigo and he was by far the most impressive pitcher there (better than Dice K [don't forget how good he was then] & Aroldis Chapman].Considering the amount we spent on Jackson and Harden the last two year, can you image if this guy was in our rotation?JUst dreaming I guess…

Svrluga may be onto something. Gonzalez at the moment is not the Nats No. 2 starter, or close to it. Honors at the moment go to Strasburg (on the basis of reputation; we'll see what happens Friday), Detwiler and Zimmermann first. Sometimes Gonzalez looks about as focused as Curious George.

222- maybe they were in a hurry to get out of town, but I did not hear anything from Det- just speculation from others, who were making it sound like he was throwing only one kind of pitch.. As for Gio– he can be erratic and emotional , but you would think Suzuki could handle him.

222 – Detwilers fastballs are 2 different pitches as his 2-seamer has great sink and his 4-seamer has late life. He threw no changeups last night but threw 7 pitches identified as a slower slider. I called it a slurve which is the same grip just a forearm and wrist angle between the 2 pitches. Det also threw several 95 mph power sinkers that was his K pitch of choice last night.

Can someone who knows a lot more than I do about pitching explain the importance, after 3 weeks of the season, to number our starters? I do understand that when the playoffs start our number one will go against their number one but we are now at a point where to me, it really doesn't matter who our # 1-2-3-4-or 5 guy is. I just want them to go out and throw well. Det just pitched against the Marlins "#1" and I think he did ok. I am getting tired of hearing that Haren is not our number 4 and now I read that Gio is not our number 2. Who cares? They are part of our 5 man rotation and it is not going to get switched around because one guy is pitching better than another. OK, rant overGo Nats!!

Rabbit – it has been said (I think it was Earl Weaver) that your momentum is only as good as that days starting pitcher. I am paraphrasing but you are correct with your thought, Hold the other team down and score one more run then they do and things will be just fine.

Yes Ghost, that's exactly what I said (or at least meant) about his two different fastballs. My question is why you call that third pitch a slider or slurve, rather than a curve? The Wash Post's At Bat of the Day has him throwing just three identified pitches: 67 sinkers (51 for strikes!), 31 FBs (20 for strikes), 7 curveballs (5 for strikes) and 2 "unknown" pitches. The one curveball they note in the chart of the At Bat of the Game was 80 mph. That's not the speed of a slider or slider like pitch coming from a guy who throw FBs at 95. Or are you saying that the pitch had slider like movement, but curveball like speed (hence slurve). The ones I saw bent like curves rather than darting away like sliders. I'm just trying to understand what this new pitch is and when he threw it.

But to answer your question sjm, you are absolutely right, there is no importance whatsoever to the designation. Last year after the ASG, Davey started out with our #3 JZnn. To call Haren our #4 not #5 is a silly insult. He's going to pitch every five days until they pull the plug, that's the important thing.

I do see, with wishful thinking, that Davey might have to make some adjustments both at the all-star break, and again (hopefully) going into the playoffs. Then again, he might just go right-left-right-left in Oct.Way too early for that right now. We have to discuss Danny vs Lombo – Zimms throwing Dets pitch selection and many other items of import.

Sec 222 – since I am rarely right at my house I appreciate that. Of course I rarely discuss baseball with my "spousal equivalent" who can't seem to understand why Zimm is the Face of the Franchise when Harper and Strasburg get all the publicity. I keep trying but she is not buying it.

And another thing, the pitching order won't even matter in the playoffs unless we clinch early enough for Davey to line up Stras, Gio, JZnn etc. If the race is close down to the wire, Det may end up starting game #1. Right now, that seems like the more likely scenario.I'm looking at the schedule and May 15 looks like a pretty good bellweather date. By late that night, the Nats will have played 25 games in 27 days. Of those 25 games, 16 will have been against the Cardinals (3 at home), Reds (4 at home), Braves (4 away), Dodgers (3 away) and Tigers (2 at home). If we're still hanging close to the Braves at that point, I'd call our chances of winning the NL East pretty good. If they've opened up a sizeable lead by then (8-10 games), we're in some trouble.

Ghost, did you notice or can you point to a site that shows how fast those (very few) pitches were? Because, again, I haven't seen a power pitcher who throws a 80 mph slider. Aren't sliders most effective when they are closer to your fastball velocity?

Ghost Of Steve M. said… Wonk, JZim has a history of getting bombed by StL and the Cardinals badmouthed Gio after Game 5 with the "blood in the water" comments. Just better they don't pitch this time around. April 18, 2013 4:11 PM _________________________________Haren gets Monday vs Cardinals. Get the Maalox and Bourbon ready!

For everyone asking about Detwiler's mysterious breaking ball…According to Fangraphs, he threw curveballs from 2007-11, but then has thrown sliders since last season (12.6% in 2012, 6.1% in 2013).I won't be at this weekend's series in New York, but I'll ask Ross about it next week when the team gets back to D.C.

Mark, thanks much on that. It's very cool. Also check out that video link I just put up. That's interesting on Fangraphs because Brooks Pitch F/X disagrees and never had him throwing a slider. I can't wait to hear what Ross has to say.I think SteveM is probably right. It's just a different wrist/forearm angle that is more slurvey. Also a good point that the grip is the same and is just the angle the pitcher uses but I can't wait to see what Ross calls it. He certainly has changed the pitch since mid last year.

Gonat: Actually, that clip was from Detwiler's full group interview after the game. It looks like they only showed the two questions from Bob, but it continued for several minutes after with questions from the rest of us.

Mark Zuckerman said… Gonat: Actually, that clip was from Detwiler's full group interview after the game. It looks like they only showed the two questions from Bob, but it continued for several minutes after with questions from the rest of us. April 18, 2013 4:23 PM ______________________________Is that right. It was quiet. I guess MASN edited up to look like Bob had a 1-on-1. I tried to quote that line by Ross.I liked how he was critical of his own outing as that has been the rub on him is over-cooking his sinker into a stinker but as he got going he was deadly. He ended the game with 14.5% of his pitches were swing & miss. He had a lot of 2 strike counts and got that pitch count up in the 2nd by not being able to put away the batters quicker.

Thanks all. What Ray Knight calls a pitch means something, but it's certainly not definitive. Last night, Ray was saying he's never seen anyone ever throw so many fastballs so effectively as if he was basically throwing one pitch all night long. It seems pretty clear that he's throwing 2 different pitches — the 2 seamer and the 4 seamer have very different looks. I'll look forward to hearing Mark's report on what Detwiler has to say about the mystery third pitch, or whether there are actually two different off speed pitches that he's using. The way he's pitching a whole lot of people are going to be analyzing what he's doing.

Oof. Not a good day for the Syracuse hurlers. Chiefs lose 27-9, giving up 29 hits (the most runs and hits in at least 40 years). Tanner Roark started the misery by allowing five runs in the first. Thanks to a Marrero HR the Chiefs got it to 5-4, but after that, le deluge.

222, if Detwiler can overpower the Cardinals on Tuesday you can best believe National Det will start getting national pub!Now that we have Mark on the breaker mystery we will know soon enough what Det is cooking!

Here is what I want- and I am so sure that the team reads this blog:) Span goes up there and works over the pitcher until he has thrown every pitch he can think of, then he walks. Werth comes up and fouls off about ten and gets a hit. Span steals third. Bryce comes up and, well, you know…. If they walk him to get to Zim, he will punish them. That's my fantasy scenario and it ends with an early appearance by the Mets bullpen. I just love it when the first 4 guys wreak havoc at the beginning of a game.

Anyone besides me worry that if what Harper had was actually the flu (vs. food poisoning) that he might give it to the rest of the team? (Not everyone would go 4-for-5: most human beings would go home when they felt like that, not to the ballpark, and definitely not to play). ArVAFan

peric, I like Chase's report. As suggested, he needs to do the teams in ascending or descending order from AAA to Low A or Low A to AAA.Seems like you are upset that he may have overlooked Kobernus. Maybe he didn't see him as hotter than Marrero.

Swami – Funny part is we wrote the same thing. That was John Mayberry playing the part of the "Face-Plant" in RF by the way.You don't see that every season. Colbert just had a meltdown! That was worth it!

baseballswami said… NatsJack- don't worry. If he is good they will surely trade him. April 18, 2013 8:13 PM __________________________________Hah! They have 6 years of control so they will trade him in 3 years.

pitching matchup of the night isn't going too well for either side in Cincinnati and Marlins. Fernandez has given up 4 runs in 4 innings and Tony has given only one run in 4 innings but pitch count is 80+.

And this just in sportsfans, in the new International Football League, the Buffalo Bisons beat the Syracuse Chiefs, 27-9.The starting pitcher for the Chiefs, Tanner Roark was seen throwing footballs after the game!

You're right John C., I owe you! I thought that I had checked the NI ticker tape to see that I wasn't gonna be scooped!Oh well, it was a football game wasn't it??As for the Diet Coke you'll have to get in line, as I owe half the NI's Diet Cokes!Hopefully, I make to the next NT's Octoberfest, and get to buy everybody 'a coke'—or something stronger!!!

number of walks this season Votto has taken: 24.Next best is 11 for Pujols.But only 3 XBH and 3 RBIs on the season. However Reds are scoring plenty runs lately. back to back games where they have scored 11 runs.